In whose interests?: What empirical research reveals – And does not reveal – About how family lawyers manage role conflicts in parental separation cases

Abstract Family lawyers representing parent‐clients in separation proceedings are confronted with a professional role conflict: the obligation to represent the interests of their client, while simultaneously acting in the interests of any children involved. This article presents a systematic literature review examining how empirical research has addressed this tension and how the role of family lawyers is perceived by children, parents, and lawyers. The review reveals that no existing empirical studies directly investigate how family lawyers manage this role conflict in practice. Moreover, children's own perceptions of the family lawyer's role remain largely absent from empirical inquiry. By highlighting these gaps, the article argues that current empirical research provides an incomplete account of how family lawyers understand and navigate the tension between parent‐client advocacy and child‐centered considerations in practice. In light of this absence, the review draws on three related bodies of empirical research: studies concerning family lawyers and the “best interests of the child,” literature including the perceptions of children and parents on the lawyer's role, and research on lawyers' role orientations and the tensions they identify. By synthesizing the existing empirical research, the article proposes a cautious, interpretive account of how family lawyers may navigate the professional role conflict. While these inferences provide some preliminary insight, they remain provisional due to the lack of direct empirical analysis. The article concludes that there is a gap in the research and pleads for research that directly examines how family lawyers manage the professional dilemma in parental separation cases, specifically in a manner that includes the perspectives of children.